About this fungus
Plums and Custard is a fungus in the Tricholomataceae family. Its habitat and field characteristics are summarised below.
A showy wood-rotting mushroom with dense purple-red scales over a yellow cap and bright yellow gills. It usually grows from old conifer stumps, logs or buried woody remains.
What to check
Look for a 3 to 12 cm dry cap whose purple-red fibres or scales separate to expose yellow ground beneath. The attached to notched gills are yellow, the stem is yellow with red-purple fibres, and the spore print is white to cream. There is no ring or volva. Confirm a woody substrate because buried roots can make it appear soil-growing.
Variation
Young caps can look almost uniformly red-purple because the scales are dense. As the cap expands, yellow ground appears between them, and dry older caps can become cracked or patchy. The stem may be strongly coloured or mostly yellow.
Lookalikes
Tricholomopsis decora is yellow to olive-yellow with darker yellow-brown scales rather than rich purple-red ones. Other wood-growing yellow-gilled mushrooms differ in spore colour or veil characters. Very faded material may require microscopic confirmation.
Habitat and range
Saprobic on conifer wood, especially spruce and pine stumps and logs, with occasional records from other wood. It fruits singly or in small groups across temperate and boreal regions, with season varying by climate.
Food safety
Inedible.
Photographs
Strobilomyces / CC BY-SA 3.0
Grossbildjaeger / CC BY-SA 3.0Species to compare
Similar mushrooms to compare against: